The Red Room

46

The head sacks come off inside an apartment building. Grace and Knox are ushered upstairs as their captors struggle with the crate holding the Harmodius.

Grace is thinking that if Besim’s friend spots surveillance, she’ll never know about it. Her phone is off, its SIM pulled. She believes it was returned to her purse, but she isn’t about to check. Instead, she’s trying to help Knox from behind as he struggles to climb on painful legs. With the ascent of each stair, she considers another bullet point on her list of financial topics to cover with Mashe Okle.

Like Knox, she has a role to play; unlike Knox, she does not ad-lib. She recites her lines, considers her strategies and steadies him by holding him around the waist, impressed by the sense of physical power that comes with the contact — even a wounded John Knox would prove a formidable foe.

The sparsely furnished apartment is a safe house. Not lived in, judging by the lack of personal touches. Drawn drapes lend a sense of claustrophobia to the scant items of furniture: imitation leather couch; a glass-topped stainless-steel coffee table, badly scratched. Several of the floor tiles have been cracked and reglued.

Akram looks nervous. Mashe does not. He’s smaller than his brother, wiry but with a big head, his black hair trimmed over the ears but fashionably long on his neck. He wears heavy-rimmed glasses with thick lenses. Gray suit trousers, a collarless pressed white shirt. The matching suit coat hangs over a ladder-back dining chair at a table that may have never seen a meal. He carries an air of aloof overconfidence, no doubt perpetually aware that he is the smartest man in any room.

Knox sits down on an orange-cushioned chair that hisses under his weight. It’s positioned facing the coffee table at a right angle to the couch. The chair is too small for him; his knees stick up high. He’s chosen it because due to a jog in the wall there’s no way anyone can come up from behind him. It’s a defensive position. Across the room, Grace takes note of his choice.

Mashe Okle shakes their hands and introduces himself as “Akram’s brother.” He then approaches his two handlers and stands by, awaiting the unpacking of the Harmodius. It’s an ordeal. Grace is wondering if Knox is thinking what she is: they’re halfway to their five-minute deadline already. This is made more evident by Mashe’s twisting of his wristwatch.

She believes her phone is directly connected to the overheating wristwatches, though the mechanics make no sense. She has shut off her phone on multiple nights with no odd consequences. How would powering off a device or removing a SIM card create such an effect in the first place? More to the point, her phone has never been out of her possession. Who could have rigged it, and when?

But the empirical evidence contradicts all her arguments.

Three minutes…

If he’s defecting, why is he continuing to act out the role of art collector?

“Out,” Mashe Okle instructs his two security men, one of whom takes in Knox warily. Knox grins for the man, ever the wiseass.

The guards leave the apartment though their conversation carries through the door; they want Knox to know they aren’t going anywhere.

Mashe Okle studies the Harmodius with deep reverence. He dons a pair of white cotton gloves and touches the piece sensually. “Akram and I have discussed the results of the preliminary lab work. I must say: it sounds promising.”

“There is the matter of the financing,” Grace says, firmly embedded in her role.

“If I were part of a cultural police force, Ms. Chu,” he says, making it known he’s researched her at least to the point of knowing her name, “you two would have been arrested upon entering this apartment.”

“Such investigations take months, even years. We both know that.” She’s wondering if he considers her a midlevel bureaucrat with the United Nations or a freelance accountant in Hong Kong. The man gives off an intimidating presence, especially for a person so small and thin.

“Point taken,” he concedes.

“The recent deposits into your investment account require adequate explanation and sourcing, or I am afraid this transaction cannot go forward.”

Everyone knows that Mashe holds the cards in terms of the transaction going forward. They are in his safe house, with no idea what part of the city they are in. It’s his goons outside, and his brother standing to Knox’s left.

The sounding of a ship horn in that instant works against the Okle brothers. Its proximity and clarity reveal that the apartment is located no more than ten blocks from the Bosphorus. Rain clatters against the windows on the other side of the mauve drapes. The sound is metallic, suggesting a fire escape. Grace assumes Knox has catalogued this and more, though she doesn’t appreciate the faraway look in his eyes. That, coupled with his shit-eating grin, is reason for concern.

“Fellow investors,” Mashe Okle says.

“I tried to—” Akram says.

His older brother lifts a hand, silencing him.

That demonstration of control liquefies Grace’s bowels. She wants out of here. Now. The sound is of rain on metal gutters.

Strength demands strength. It is the rule behind all escalation.

“I will require documentation of the source of those deposits. Canceled checks, copies of wire transfers. And I caution you: I must source the origin of each deposit, the originating accounts.”

“I respect such thoroughness.”

“I will need a computer and time. Such work is not easy, nor is it without risk.”

He purses his lips. “I am under the impression that you, Mr. Knox, require the transaction to take place today. Now. That you have a plane to catch.”

“My accountant is quite capable, Mr. Okle. An hour or two is all.” Knox looks to Grace for confirmation.

She nods. “It would be a start.”

Mashe Okle draws close the ladder-back chair that holds his suit jacket and sits. He speaks more softly. “I am afraid we lack the computer you require. I am also sorry to say neither of you will leave this apartment until the transaction is completed. You see, I have the same concerns as you, Ms. Chu. Mr. Knox is not known to trade in such rare artifacts. Now we are to believe he has come across one of the rarer treasures in the history of Western civilization. A treasure carrying traces of Israeli soil.”

He blinks rapidly, revealing a deep-seated fatigue. Grace needs no reminder from Knox that this apparent change in his behavior comes after the five-minute mark, though she lacks an explanation for it.

She’s distracted by the recollection of her admittance to the Red Room. She and Dulwich surrendered their phones to shelving outside the secure space. Other than the two abductions, it was the last time she can remember being separated from her iPhone. She knows Knox was briefed in the Red Room as well. Her throat, already dry, is parched.

Their phones were tampered with, perhaps cloned and replaced during their briefings. Dulwich’s choice of the Red Room had little or nothing to do with secrecy, and everything to do with separating them from their devices. The degree of the conspiracy expands exponentially — she and Knox have been carefully manipulated from the start. Everything Dulwich has put them through is part of a well-crafted plan. Knox’s paranoia is justified.

Mashe Okle has gone pale, perspiration covering his face with a sweaty glaze. The room is hot, and Grace says so. Akram, also sweating, agrees. He disappears behind the drawn drapes and the street sounds intensify as fresh air flows across the space, the wind billowing the curtains. Akram reappears.

“Brother?” he inquires, focusing on the man’s sallow skin tone.

“Tired is all.”

Has Mashe been anticipating this? Is it part of his plan to defect? He must not seem ill; he must be ill. Is Akram privy to any of it?

Knox stands. He speaks, sounding sleepy. “You’re in possession of the lab results. You’ve seen the piece in person. You will either bring a laptop and some food and coffee or release us and the Harmodius until such time as my associate can complete her due diligence.”

Mashe looks like he’s had enough. His body language shows weakness. He shakes his head as if disappointed.

“Brother?” Akram’s concern comes across as nerves.

“I am fine.” To Knox, Mashe says, “I doubt these men have been terribly accommodating, and for this I would like to apologize. I suspect the present arrangements have made you and your colleague uncomfortable. Again, I apologize. While I respect your desire to leave, I believe you will find my security personnel less agreeable.” He addresses Grace. “I will request a computer, as you wish. I must caution you: they are likely to decline the request, as any Internet access could, I presume, locate the three of us in ways I doubt I must elaborate upon. Therefore, I will suggest we are in something of a stalemate. I seriously doubt, Ms. Chu, you will be availed of your desire to vet my accounts and, while I understand the desire for such verification, it simply may not be possible given the present circumstances.

“This leaves us with two choices: I can transfer one half of the funds to any account you choose, the balance to remain in escrow, or I can direct these men to make sure the two of you are in no condition to follow me and take the sculpture without compensation.”

He allows the silence to settle.

“I am not a thief. I have no desire to make a reputation as one. Nor do I desire to threaten or aggravate the two of you to the point at which you might consider exposing the Harmodius, no matter that once I leave here, no one will ever find it. My brother is a man of honor. I am, as well. However, if you force my hand…”